ouroboros
by stanzas
Summary: The day Gavin MacLeod begins living, everything begins changing. [based on "king of the damned" and canon divergent of s9]


**summary**: The day Gavin McCloud begins living, everything begins changing.

**a/n-** my first s9 canon divergent fic to be posted! will probably come in 7 parts, including this prologue. beta'd by rumbleimpala on ao3 (who is rad as heck btw). this story will mainly feature Gavin MacLeod, who was (re)introduced in 9.21 "King of the Damned". hope you all enjoy!

* * *

_**.i.**_

_**horologe - the telling of time**_

* * *

Time is a rather finicky law of nature. Each moment has a rather grandiose effect on the moments after it. Time is P, meanwhile a future might be C, but the P is more important because of the order of the events. P is what defines the order of everything, the chance some order might occur and create another order, out of a C chance, but really, once an order is set, the cycle just keeps going. One order following after another. Every reality merging into one, to create the '_real_'ity.

That's also the reason why only very powerful beings controlled it. There were too many variables to mess with the...time equilibrium. Fuck it. Space time continuum. (Science. Quantum time differential related space equations. How to teleport. Good god, let's just watch Star Trek and be done with it.)

There are some beings that can control space and time with only a thought. These beings, unattached to their universe and sort of floating in the Nether, drifting without an orbit, without a gravity in any direction. The inbetween of realities. It's actually rather confusing, but think of it as a tiny hallway between two rooms. Filled with garbage. Or, rather, deceased beings who once had access to the Time-Space-Travel system. Angels ended up trapped in the Nether more often than not, causing severe traffic problems for the unattached futures, God, and Death to pass between. Demons, the corrupted souls of the pit, often disintegrated into the cosmos of nothingness in the Nether. There is no true death for them.

God hasn't used the Nether in a while. Death is a more frequent traveler. Sometimes he'd pop into the universe of the reign of Avalon, the one in which the Fae had taken control of the Earth before humans could walk it and claim it as their own. Humanity is the servant of the Fae in the Avalon realm. It is bright and peaceful there, and the Garden still untouched. Lucifer never falls. Demons never filled the earth with chaos. Humans are ignorant, but they were happy all the same. There are other universes he can visit as well, ones with happy joyous endings wrapped up in a bow, or detrimentally depressing ones. Some had problems in them down to the core of their existence, and slowly are peeled away until they fall into the Nether and are recycled as time continued on. Energy keeps making more universes. Old ones fall apart. Time keeps running into infinity.

This is how universes fail sometimes: Apocalypse. Zombies. Freaky demonic viruses that turn the world inside out. Angels wanting to play out the final script. Demons opening portals to Hell. Nuclear war. Disease. Famine. Worldwide catastrophe. Humanity's first descendants never surviving the first stages of the petri dish, never existing, never walking like they would, like they were _meant_ to, on Eden.

The Universe began when the first human perished. Death was released unto the world for all eternity to keep the balance.

_There is a prophecy written in the cosmos when the stars were all aligned_

_**;** the serpent Urobos shall rise and devour the Sun_

_only then to devour itself_

_and cease to exist **;**_

And, as always, it begins the same. The wise (and rather dipsomaniac) Prophet Chuck once said, _"The endings are the hardest part."_ They are. They always are.

They're never different, how the stories end. The basis is always the same. The details of the story make it different, make it special. The ending is still the same, though. There is no way to avert it, to drag it off course. Everything must pass the finish line. Everyone plays their role, in the end. Everyone_ Must Pass Go, Please Collect $200_. The end is just two words on a paper, telling the viewer, it's goodbye now, time to let go.

Sometimes it's a prophetic Apocalypse between two archangels and the promise of Paradise. Other times it's a demonic virus that wipes out an entire planet and the hopes of an entire race. Sometimes it's the choices of a Scottish drunkard to make a deal. To fall unto Hell and it's Daemons.

The chance to have a Knight travel through the space of Time, to steal his son. To release the same Son and leave him to his own devices. To change an entire universe with one choice.

_"Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up...here"_

The ending is coming here as well. Death will come and claim what he has been waiting for, and reap The Beginning.

a ripple effect.

to come full circle.

tear up the script and change the pages but -

the

ending

is

coming.

It will always start and end the same, as it has since the very dawn of time. The dusk is settling. The sun is setting. Darkness is coming. The end is upon the universe.

the first story began; and now it shall end.

_two_

_brothers._

_an angel._

_an act of faith,_

_another of free will._

_and a sacrifice to decide_

_the fate of an entire universe._


End file.
